The Rise of Ren Crown (42 page)

I tucked away two hours of research in a library streaming room—furious, focused research on the Third Layer, Outlaw Territory, the protections needed to travel within it, and how to get there—with an acceptable five percent loss to my magic recovery.

Learning how to use the streaming rooms had been one of my best moves my first term here—the sheer load of material and connections that could be made between different texts was unparalleled. I also needed to get to Draeger once they opened the Eighth and Ninth Circles, or figure out a way to get through the restriction.

I started a list of threat assessments, protections, and queries that I would solve in the free moments I had the rest of the day.

Constantine wasn't in his room, but I had the key—which was still a little weird. I exchanged items between my day bag and increasingly burgeoning duffel, and locked up after myself.

I strode down the hall, Justice Tablet under my arm.

It wasn't that I suddenly had different priorities. I had the same priorities, and the same clear goal. I was just now possessed of a timeline and deadly motivation.

I fielded a call from Neph, one from Will, and one from Saf, saying I'd meet them after service duties. And I sent a quick, coded message to Dagfinn asking about comms in the Third Layer.

I was going after Olivia on my own—I couldn't afford to have anyone drown on my sinking ship—but I wasn't going to ignore the lesson learned from Bloody Tuesday and this past term, in general.

Mages working together could create incredible things.

And I wouldn't discount Marsgrove and his words about protecting everyone here. I had to make sure that everyone I left behind was taken care of.

It presented complications both for my plans to leave campus and for what needed to be implemented to hide that disappearance.

I would have to deal with friends who would surely object to the plan, as well as keep information flowing uninhibited. It presented a challenge that I thought would be best approached from task setting first, permission asking later.

With all of those things in mind, I headed out on my first set of morning Justice calls with alternate goals.

Lifen opened the door, a bright orange pen in her hand, in contrast to her all black wardrobe. Her dark hair was even pulled back with a black band.

“Crown.”

“Chen.” I nodded, addressing her the same way.

“What alarmed me?” Her eyes narrowed on my tablet.

“Nothing. Sorry about that. I'm on my way from another call in your dorm and decided to stop by before the next one rings. Got a moment?”

She nodded and motioned me inside.

Her roommate, a blonde who had her frequency on so high that I could see the magic pulses around her head of the music she was listening to, was sitting cross-legged on a bed on the other side of the room. Upon seeing me, she stared for a moment longer than was comfortable and her frequency pulses increased in a cacophonous burst.

She touched something on her bed—was that one of my roses?—then touched the wall nearest her. Dragging her fingers across the space, a barrier erected itself and mounted into the wall on the other side, cordoning her off completely from us. The seeping waves from her frequency abruptly ceased.

I pointed to the barrier. “Sound proof in both directions?”

“By design,” Lifen said.

I accepted the security of it without question. Chen Lifen was not an average rule breaker. But discretion was always a good idea.

“What do you need?” she asked.

“Metalworking commission. Jewelry.”

Lifen was far more of a blade girl. Sharp, pointy things. But she was a maker, and a crafter. And she had smithed the memorial plaques in the team's armbands herself.

I opened my notebook to the drawing of the ouroboros ring that the Dorm head had been wearing in his lip. After reading about what was needed in Outlaw Territory, and thinking about leaving everyone behind, a number of things had combined to make me think of this option. The swallowing vine, the lip ring, the firesnakes, the need for transmogrification...

Lifen cocked her head at me. “Protection charms?”

“Um, no, metal snakes that can slither, climb, swallow magic, and swallow themselves if discovered. A sort of...personal recycling system.”

A slow smile worked over Lifen's lips. “You have enchantments in mind?”

I nodded to her, holding up a sheet of notes. “And I thought...Loudon?”

She tapped her chin. “Yeah, okay, I can see that. Never thought about working with him on anything before. He interested?”

I tapped him mentally, then gave a nod. “He said that if he could insert a spell to make something self-destruct, he was in.”

She gave a light laugh. “Give me your notes and two hours to work up a skeletal prototype, Crown. I'll contact him.”

~*~

I took three more calls, then dropped by Dagfinn's. Trick was there, like an imp keeping track of his mischief. I wasn't surprised to see him. He, Saf, and Dagfinn were close, and anything I told one likely was as good as shared with the other two.

Dagfinn had read between the lines of my note like the paranoid communication mage he was, and, with a flourish, handed me something as soon as I stepped in his door.

“And you can communicate between the layers with this?” I asked, examining the slim manufactured rock with its many streaked veins.

“Absolutely. And I've made a few modifications. They'll do whatever we want them to do.”

“You aren't going to get in trouble with the SEC or FAA, or whatever it is here?”

His eyes unfocused for a moment, then he brightened. “Ah. FACE—Frequency and Communication Exchange—and no.” His smile turned sly. “They've been after Mage X for years, and haven't caught him yet.”

I stared at him.

Well, that solved my problem of thinking I was dragging everyone along with me into being enemies of the state. They all already were.

“I'm extremely thankful that you ended up on our team in this,” I said finally.

Dagfinn winked. He looked more relaxed than I had seen him. He was usually paranoid and twitchy. “You cleaned up just about every loose end I had on campus Tuesday.
Before
the Department could get their claws in me. Excelsine policy doesn't allow students to be subjected to government scrutiny except in the case of extreme violation or expulsion. I was a lot looser on campus than I am in the outside world, and that was about to abruptly bite me in the canker. FACE and the Department would have connected all the dots.”

He spread his hands. “Whatever you need, Crown, as I said before.”

~*~

Delia was next, and I got right down to business.

“Have you ever made a battle cloak?”

“Yes.”

I blinked. I had been expecting a negative response. “Oh, great.”

She looked amused. “There's a class on cloaks in the stitching sciences department.”

“Oh. I feel...slightly dumb for not anticipating that.”

She laughed. “No one pays attention to our classes.” Her eyes looked sly. “They should, though. They should pay far more attention to the stitches in what they wear.”

Delia's frequency of small offenses was legendary.

“What about shadow cloaks?”

Her gaze sharpened and she drew an extra privacy rune in the floor with her foot. “The ones the praetorians wear?”

“Yes.”

She sighed. “They are illegal to make or wear. They work like Kaine's Shadow Magic, but also separately from it. Listen.” She held up a hand. “Seeking information about those is not something either of us need. But I can make you something else. Something that for you will work
better
.”

She touched my neck, and a ghostly image of magic followed her fingers' path as she pulled her arm back.

She touched a roll of thread and I could see her magic reaching out and touching each string, sifting along and communing with each tiny thread. It was a little like how I approached paint and color. But there was a taste to the magic that spoke of texture over hue as Delia touched and stroked everything, whispering small enchantments as she worked.

Snipped threads littered the floor. I picked up one and touched it, feeling for the threads of magic.

This type of magic was the difference between a competent battle cloak and something truly extraordinary.

There was a change in the atmosphere of her workspace, and I looked up.

She lifted two fingers, pinched together, and held them out to me.

I stared blankly at her fingers. “You can make air?”

She laughed and shook her fingers. A ripple of material shifted in the air. I moved forward toward it. “Camouflage?”

“Works best outside.” She leaned forward. “And works best with a mage who can
feel
the magic around her as well as the air. Or a mage who has access to someone who can imbue those qualities.”

“Mike?”

“Weather mage, Origin Mage, fiber mage.” She winked. “It's a quality combo, Crown.”

A smile started slowly but moved quickly on my lips. “Fantastic.”

My smile quickly slipped. “Wait. When did you start this?” There's no way she had just whipped this out today.

“Tuesday. Mike too.”

Panic gripped me.

She chewed her lip. “We've known this was how things would go. I know that Price and I don't get along. But she sacrificed herself for you.” Her head tilted, looking off to the west. “Never thought I'd see sacrifice in a Price.”

“Delia, I don't want you involv—”

She looked back to me, heavily kohled eyelids half-lowered over brown eyes. “Too bad. Loyalty vibe. Told you, Crown. Count me in on whatever happens. Oh, and don’t delude yourself that you are keeping this a secret from Will and Neph.”

My shoulders slumped—I wanted to keep them all safe—but my internal joy couldn't dim at having them
know
, of not keeping secrets.

Thirty minutes later, with a sporty weather mage at our side, we were spinning threads between us.

Chapter Thirty-one: Deals of Discussion

When I finally returned to the guys' room, Constantine was leaning against the full length window in their living room, staring out. He turned and his sharp eyes swept over every inch of me.

“You've been quite busy this morning,” he said. He was holding himself very still, and I would have said he was amused if I couldn't feel the deep anger resonating across our connection.

“Long night.”

“When are you leaving?”

I hesitated, then continued rifling through my things. After being confronted by Delia, it wasn't like I had thought I would sneak by
Constantine
, but I didn't relish this conversation.

Any thoughts on giving him crap about what the rumor mill had cooked up had faded far below my real concerns.

“He gave me three days.”

“Ren.”

My shoulders dropped, along with the shirt in my hands. I stared at it. “I'm seeking help.
Asking
for it. But I have to go alone.”

On stealthy cat feet, he dropped down in front of me. He smiled when I looked up. It was less pleasant than the ones he usually favored me with.

“Do you think that's going to happen?” he asked, voice pleasant.

I gripped my shirt. “Raphael sucked me into a dream state last night. He said that he would release Olivia—let us both go—if I came for her. He doesn't lie. But I'm positive the no-kill agreement would not include you.”

Before winter term, Raphael might have toyed with Constantine before delivering the blow, but after finding out that Constantine had leeched me, Constantine had been living under a prompt death sentence in Raphael's mind.

He'd dealt Constantine such a blow, even in the limited golem skin Raphael had worn. Constantine would have died on Tuesday if it hadn't been for the healing spells both Axer and I had placed on him.
Mine
had been super shady too. I still wasn't completely sure what the paint had done to him.

“He'll kill you,” I said softly. “When it was a rescue mission, an infiltration, it was different.” I rubbed my eyes. “Or maybe it wasn't different, and I just wasn't thinking clearly. Nothing about Tuesday was clear. There is no element of surprise now, though, and that's infinitely worse for you.”

“You think he wasn't always expecting you?”

I stayed silent. Raphael had been expecting me from the moment that Olivia stepped in front of the spell meant for me.

Constantine lifted my chin. “I'm going to kill him. And you are going to get your friend back. That's all that matters in this.”

I pressed my lips together. “Telling me you are going to commit murder is not the best way to go about things.”

“It has been months since I've sold myself to you as anything other than what I am.”

“Kaine is there. Somewhere. He attacked when Raphael cast me out.”

“And we will deal with him too.” He released my chin.

I stared at the shirt, rubbing it between my fingers.

“You weren't even going to tell Alexander, were you?” he mused.

I peered up at Constantine. He was smiling.

“Probably. Maybe. I have a few days. I need to plan. He'll try to talk me out of it. And...he's busy.”

Constantine seemed to find something darkly amusing, but he didn't explain.

“Why do you think Verisetti wants you there in person?” he asked instead.

“Probably to strap a bomb to me or worse. Maybe just to get me arrested when I leave campus, so I'll be sucked into the Department. I don't know.” I rubbed my eyes again. “But he vowed. He will let Olivia go, if I make it there.”

“You look worse.”

“It's been a rough few nights.”

He looked me over. “Tonight will be better.”

“Sure.” I could be optimistic. “Where were you last night?”

“Medical.”

“Do you have to stay there every night?” Maybe I could get Greyskull to admit me on a temporary order, and I could keep Constantine company and get away from Bellacia.

“No. Just last night. Tonight will be far better, as I said.” He smiled slowly.

“If you say so. But, listen, since I have you now, I need to get into the vault.”